


Bent

by Dowwwney (Wynt)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst and Porn, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Bearded Steve Rogers, Frottage, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony-centric, implied previous relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-03
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-05-01 16:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14524989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynt/pseuds/Dowwwney
Summary: Still, Steve waits. Watches him with those blue, blue eyes that look sadder than he’s ever seen them. Waits until Tony is done yelling, and then waits some more just in case, before speaking.“We need to figure this out.” Steve says, voice still so even, still so sure, and Tony can’t take it.





	Bent

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I cope.

_" We aren't exactly on speaking terms."_

And they still weren't, after everything. Tony pins it on his own ignorance; the idea that if he didn't have to acknowledge the fact that Captain America was in his home-- _ their home--  _ then maybe everything else wasn't as real, wasn't as  _ bad. _

The compound is horribly quiet, despite the Avengers-- whatever remained of them, at least-- coming back. Natasha and Rhodey and Bruce and Vision’s  _ corpse _ and Steve--

Steve.

They weren't on speaking terms still, if only because Tony just couldn't  _ handle  _ the concept of things getting so bad that Captain America  _ actually came home,  _ and brought everyone with him to keep whatever and whoever safe in a place that Tony had built because he trusted it  _ that much _ \-- nope, Tony couldn’t think about it.

They pass each other more than once, twice, in the compound and Tony hates that because he's making a deliberate effort to avoid everybody and  _ especially  _ Steve so the fact that they're crossing paths is an obvious indicator that Steve is deliberately seeking Tony out and why the hell would he do that? 

They aren't on speaking terms, and haven't been for a long, long time.

“Tony,” Cap tries, every time they’re within any sort of tangible distance of each other. Tony ignores him and pretends he didn't hear anything and yeah, sure, he's being immature and unhelpful and stubborn  (what else is new?) but what do you expect from a man who was allowed to live while everyone else didn't-- while a  _ kid  _ clung onto him and _begged to stay_ , as if _he_ had chosen to stay, as if he had the power to decide that for everyone else.

Peter didn't even get to say goodbye to his goddamn aunt.

Everything’s a blur, a haze; Tony isn’t even sure how  he  made it back ‘home’ from where he was in some asscrack nebula of space-- but he had made it, unfortunately, and while everything was sort of fuzzy when he tried remembering any sort of details, the faces of the others that were with him were clear as crystal. 

Alcohol helps, always has.

Tony isn’t sure how much time passes after making it back to the compound. He refuses any and all medical help when he returns to earth, wanting to keep the horrible scar from being stabbed by the destructor of their universe as a reminder-- though he’s not quite sure what he’s being reminded of specifically, but the fact that it’s there is enough, filling his entire side with sharp pain every time he so much as stretches the wrong way.

He’s in his lab for a long time, though. A very long time, and the only times he speaks is to ask Friday for her opinion on something, or to ask You, Butterfingers, or Dum-E for this or that tool or knick-knack, though half the time they come back with some sort of green smoothie shake drink thing that tastes awful and sits heavy in his stomach but it keeps him alive just that much longer because somebody has to look out for him when he's intentionally not for himself.

“The Captain is at the door, he’s requesting to come in.” Friday’s voice says, a little bit exasperated because this isn’t the first time she’s said this exact sentence and Friday doesn’t like repeating herself even less so than JARVIS ever did.

“Nah, not feeling it today.” Tony responds automatically, never taking his eyes off his work. His nano-bots had taken quite a bit of damage and now he needed to figure out a way to have them regenerate themselves by using nothing short of alchemy to make the process happen--

“Tony.” 

Steve’s voice is so shocking that Tony accidentally misses the bit of metal he was soldering and burns his finger instead. He yells, jumps up from his seat and flinches at the loud crash the metal stool creates against his concrete floor and the sound echoes against the walls.

Tony shakes out his injured hand before placing both palms flat against his workbench, leaning over with shoulders hunched.

“I told you not to let him in, Friday.” Tony says, underneath his breath.

“I made an executive decision based on the circumstances around me; you  _ did  _ give me that freedom, after all.” Friday says, matter-of-factly, and Tony wonders why he programmed her to sound and act  _ so much  _ like Pepper. JARVIS would never have done this.

“Tony--” Steve tries again, and God, how many fucking times is he going to say his name? Didn’t Steve know they weren’t on speaking terms? Wasn’t that  _ his  _ decision in the first place? 

Tony pushes himself away from his bench with full intentions to leave the lab himself, trade secrets be damned, but he doesn’t get far when he turns around and Steve is  _ right there. _

Tony stares at him for too long-- at his face now covered in hair, at his eyes that are still way too blue to be real, wearing a t-shirt that barely manages to stay intact while stretched so ruthlessly across such expansive muscles.

“We need to talk.” Steve says and Tony isn’t looking at him now,  _ can’t  _ look at him now. He looks just as wrecked as Tony  _ feels  _ and Captain America isn’t supposed to look like that  _ ever.  _

“Yeah, great, okay, what are we talking about? We’re talking now, aren’t we? Is this enough? I think this is enough.” Tony says, eyes darting around to check for the quickest possible escape as he leans against his workbench, as far away from Steve as he can manage in his position. He looks a bit ridiculous, he’s sure, but that hardly matters when half the planet is just  _ gone. _

“You  _ know  _ what we need to talk about--” Steve starts, and doesn’t even get that finished before the man in front of him is interrupting him again.

“No, actually, I don’t. For all the smarts I have in the world, I can’t read minds-- or  _ moods,  _ for that matter, as Pepper used to say-- Now if you’ll excuse me, I can’t be here right now.” Tony says, sliding to the side and moving to walk past Steve, feeling panic well up in his chest and his head get heavy and he really, really hopes he doesn’t have another panic attack just because Steve Rogers is trying to talk to him.

He doesn’t get far because there’s a hand-- large, strong, deliberate-- on his bicep that pulls him back and that’s the breaking point.

“Hands off!” Tony snarls, yanking himself out of Steve’s grip so aggressively, the super soldier takes a step back.

“Tony--"

“ _ Stop  _ saying my name! We have nothing to talk about! There’s nothing I can do for you! I don’t have  _ anything  _ left to give  _ anybody,  _ Cap!” Tony yells and is just as dramatic with his gesturing as he always was when he got heated.

“I’m not here for anything, Tony.” Steve says after a moment, his voice perfectly calm, and Tony hates how Steve always made an effort to be the ‘bigger person’ in any sort of argument no matter what the topic or how he himself was feeling.

“Oh, really? Then-- wait, don’t tell me-- you’re here to  _ check up  _ on me? Is that it? To check that I haven’t fucking croaked? My entire house is programmed to not let that happen-- no matter  _ how much  _ I want to-- so you checking up on me isn’t needed  _ or  _ welcomed.” 

Still, Steve waits. Watches him with those blue, blue eyes that look sadder than he’s ever seen them. Waits until Tony is done yelling, and then waits some more just in case, before speaking.

“We need to figure this out.” Steve says, voice still so even, still so  _ sure,  _ and Tony can’t take it.

“Figure this out? You had the chance to  _ figure this out  _ with me years ago and you know what you did instead? Huh?” Tony says, taunts, with fire in his eyes fueled by the loathing he has for himself, for his situation. “We’re not friends, Cap. Might be a bit hard for your ice-chunk of a brain to understand, but let me spell it out nice and clear for you,” Tony says, his tone no longer loud but instead a hissing whisper as he steps closer to Steve with narrowed eyes and furrowed brows and a twisted mouth.

“We aren’t  _ anything  _ to each other.” Tony says, forcing himself to keep Steve’s gaze as he does and he can see something shift inside the super soldier’s brain at his words before Steve glances away, finally.

Tony wants to push him more, if only because some horrible, vengeful part of him believes that Steve deserves to suffer as much as he is right now, too.

“You had your chance. I offered you everything,  _ everything,  _ and you threw it back in my face and ran off with that goddamn caveman--”

“Don’t,” Steve warns, and yes,  _ yes,  _ that’s what Tony wants.

“Don’t  _ what?  _ Tell you what’s already happened? Tell you that you had one job and you somehow fucked that up just to be with your goddamn best friend from the disco era and now that he’s gone you think it’s alright to come crawling back here like  _ we’re  _ still friends?” Tony says and he can see the way Steve’s jaw clenches, his eyes still downcast. “Like we were  _ ever  _ friends?”

“Our friends are gone, Tony--” Steve starts, and no, no, oh no.

“ _ Your  _ friends are gone,  _ Steve.”  _ Tony corrects. “ _ Yours.  _ Not mine. They were never my friends.” Tony brushes past Steve now, tired of this whole thing and wanting nothing more than to drown himself in his own shower. “ _ You  _ were never my friend, and you made that perfectly fucking clear the last time we spoke.” 

Tony’s at his doors to the elevator now when he says, “Just because you’re a little more lonely now doesn’t mean shit. Welcome to the real-fucking-world, Rogers.” 

There was no warning sign, no indicator that Tony had crossed a line-- but that’s what he was good at, wasn’t he? Crossing lines without a care in the world. At least he hadn’t lost that about himself, like he had everything else.

The elevator doors begin to open, but they only manage a few measly inches before a fist, hard and angry, slams into one of them and jolts the entire system to a halt. Steve’s hand doesn’t leave the impressive, albeit terrifying dent in the metal, and Tony can feel breath on the back of his neck.

“Enough,” Steve says, his tone hard, demanding, and entirely Captain America. “Enough,  _ please.”  _ he says, and this time it’s softer, sadder, and more Steve Rogers than anything.

“What makes you think that any of this is okay?” Tony asks, and he didn’t plan for his voice to sound so  _ weak,  _ but it comes out that way. He turns around and can barely make himself meet Steve’s eyes-- instead, he focuses on the beard that the man grew over the time that they’ve been separated. Tony doesn’t like it-- a physical indicator that he was gone for that long, that he changed himself after they last saw each other.

“It isn’t. I know it isn’t.” Steve responds, and it  _ is  _ Steve that responds, the guy that pours his heart into everything he does and says without discrimination or fear-- and now is no different, even when speaking to somebody like Tony who is so undeserving, and has  _ always  _ been so undeserving of this side of Steve.

They’re quiet for a little bit, and Tony does an extreme amount of thinking in that small amount of time-- or maybe he isn’t thinking at all when he leans upwards and presses his mouth against Steve’s.

Steve doesn’t move until Tony starts pulling away and follows his mouth down, connecting them again only when Tony is entirely pressed against the jammed doors of the elevator.

This is bad, Tony thinks, over and over, but doesn’t stop himself from threading his fingers through Steve’s  _ much  _ longer hair, gripping tight enough to make the super soldier growl into his mouth. Tony arcs into him and Steve wraps his arms entirely around Tony’s body, so small by comparison, trapping them together.

The beard scratches Tony’s mouth in a way that reminds him that this isn’t like before, that this isn’t the same Steve with the same clean-shaven, baby smooth skin that Tony could  _ and would  _ devour via kisses and bites over and over again for hours back when-- back when things were okay.

Steve was never this handsy, never this aggressive, Tony thinks as he feels the super soldier’s hands grip the backs of his thighs, right under his ass before he’s hoisted up and pressed against the wall, his own legs wrapping automatically around Steve’s waist to better hold himself there.

Steve’s hips buck forward, his clothed erection thrusting against Tony’s own and Tony whimpers into Steve’s possessive mouth with the action. Tony pulls away from the kiss to look down, moves his hands to the front of Steve’s pants and eventually his own to pull out both their straining cocks-- a task that is made more arduous by Steve seeming to always need to have his mouth on Tony in  _ some  _ way-- something that also wasn’t a thing before, at least not this way.

Tony wraps his hands around both their cocks and  _ squeezes,  _ feeling Steve’s chest rumble in appreciation as the super soldier bucks up into his fist at the same time he bites at Tony’s neck.

It’s unconventional, and a bit uncomfortable. Tony’s side has been yelling at him this entire time but he doesn’t care and something in the back of his mind tells him that Steve wouldn’t either right now, though that could just be his self-destructive tendencies talking. Regardless, Tony can’t help but acknowledge how different  _ now  _ is from  _ then;  _ Then-- when Steve insisted on an actual bed in a bedroom for all of their escapades that were always so gentle and loving and wholesome, no matter how much Tony coaxed and teased and taunted; and Now-- when Steve is leaving such angry marks on Tony’s skin, bucking into his hand with a fervor that Tony’s never seen, against the wall of his own damn lab.

Steve’s beard scratches Tony’s skin and Steve’s hair tickles Tony’s face and Tony was never one to dwell on the past-- more like ignore it and squash it down and pretend it never happened-- and so he does just that, focusing instead on the sparks of heat and pleasure and pain that thrum though his body with every stroke of his hand against their dicks between them.

Tony wants to say something, wants to say  _ anything  _ because he can never shut up, even when doing this-- but he can’t find any words worth saying. That’s okay though, because Steve takes the choice away from him by kissing him again, hard and rough and demanding and  _ desperate.  _ So, so very desperate for any type of significant connection after everything, because despite everything, Tony really must be the only thing Steve has left now-- and that makes Tony’s stomach churn because that implies that Steve still  _has_ Tony, and Tony doesn't want to think about what that means.

Steve licks deep into his mouth, his hands tightening on Tony’s legs, pressing the smaller man further against the elevator doors. Tony whines against Steve's lips  for lack of anything else to say and he squeezes his hand on their cocks and electricity runs up his spine from the feeling.

“Tony--” Steve starts, pants, and Tony kisses the words away.

“Don’t.” Tony responds in kind, because no, no, he can’t do this, not right now. Not ever, probably, but definitely not right now, not when the things they’ll say right now would be entirely too genuine, too  _ real. _

Tony doesn’t hold out long-- he doesn’t exactly have the same stamina or endurance of a super soldier-- and comes all over their fronts, his body quivering and shaking and Steve holds him through it all and soon he’s coming undone too with a low, low groan that Tony finds familiar.

They’re panting, both of them, but rather than just letting Tony go or dropping him or setting him down, Steve decides to lower them  _ both  _ to the floor, so Tony is on his lap and so Steve is still holding him.

Tony’s arms are around Steve’s neck and their foreheads are pressed together and Tony is trying so desperately to get his brain jump-started because he definitely can’t stay here, and  _ they  _ definitely can’t stay like this-- and he wouldn’t be able to handle it if Steve said he wanted to, because that would imply that Steve would want to  _ fix  _ whatever it is that broke between them and Tony can’t allow that, not when half the world was straight up  _ raptured  _ like this was just another story in the Old Testament.

Steve angles his head, seeking out Tony’s mouth, and Tony allows himself to be kissed one more time-- and he regrets it.

He regrets it because the way Steve kisses him now is the way he used to back then, back when everything really was okay by comparison. Back when  _ they  _ were okay.

Tony pulls away, and he hates that he doesn’t want to, hates that it hurts to do that more than his side hurts from being stabbed, more than the arc reactor ever hurt when he first had it.

“You should go.” Tony says, and he feels Steve’s hands on his legs tighten.

“You  _ need  _ to go, Steve.” Tony repeats, and he doesn’t sound angry, just broken, raw. He doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes as he pushes himself off of the super soldier’s lap and stays leaning against the doors of the elevators. “There are stairs over-- over there.” Tony says, throwing his arm in the general direction of  exactly what he’s talking about.

“Tony--” Steve tries, because that’s what he does best when everyone else has given up, but Tony can’t even handle that right now, either.

“ _ Please.”  _ Tony begs, and his voice cracks in a way that makes them both flinch and that seems to do it-- Steve pulls away from him and fixes himself and leaves

Tony closes his eyes and leans his head back against the jammed doors of the elevator, hears Dum-E roll up next to him and push against him with its metallic, three-fingered robot claw hand that is hardly comforting and Tony reaches up to pat the bot.

He feels cold where Steve’s body was, hard and hot against his front-- and the silence is deafening, now that the only sign of real life in the room is his own.

Tony has half a mind to tell Friday not to let Steve in the lab again,  _ ever, _ her programming be damned-- but Tony finds that he can’t seem to bring himself to do that. 

He doesn’t think too hard about why that might be.

**Author's Note:**

> It isn't as cleaned up as I'd like it to be but I sort of just needed to get this fic out there first before I could possibly work on other, _happier_ things I have in mind.
> 
> Please leave a kudos if you cried during the movie so I know I'm not alone.


End file.
